It may be fun to fantasize about these things some times, but there is no technical solution to tyranny. Laws are not like code, intent matters. Ultimately if the intent is that the government wants to see your private data, hiding it in any way will be charged - it doesn't matter if you jump through hoops to avoid this specific instance.

GrapheneOS has built-in encrypted backup and restore. It backs up the same data transferred by Google's device transfer feature for moving to a new phone which is nearly all app data, the data in the home directory, contacts and a bit more. Certain apps such as Signal encrypt their own data with another layer of encryption using a hardware keystore key. Signal's own backup system needs to be used for that, although it can just be used as a way to get data into the system backup.

It's worth noting wiping a device shortly before an anticipated search could also be considered destruction of evidence in the same way. It doesn't have to be done after a request for the data to be considered that.

> There's no deception required to protect sensitive data or avoid the seizure of an expensive phone. Consent to unlocking the phone, refuse to unlock the drive. The drive gets seized and you go on your way (if you're a US citizen entering the USA).

This was likely the best move for him to take. They could have held him for a while and wasted his time but eventually would have had to give him access to a lawyer and let him go. Unless they had a recording of him entering a PIN/password, they were nearly certainly not going to get his data from it. He very likely didn't gain anything from wiping it.

He did help every GrapheneOS user by spreading awareness of the duress PIN/password. It was designed around an adversary aware of it and therefore not wanting to attempt using a PIN/password obtained via coercion. In the future, we want to integrate the feature into the secure element rate limiting for key derivation so it can't be avoided by exploiting the OS.

> For exactly the border search scenario, I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs.

You're always been able to backup and restore your iPhone to your local Windows PC or a Mac using free first party software from Apple.

I've restored iPhones before, and it does seem pretty simple. Easier than PCs for sure. It's not instant, but the basic configuration is restored pretty quickly while the bulk data restoration happens in the background while you're able to use the phone.

Also, it is just a nice idea if you are prone to losing phones. Backups are good for all kinds of reasons.

There's a way simpler solution and it's just to leave your phone at home and put your SIM in a different handset without all your data on it

> ...making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive... refuse to unlock the drive

How is this any different than refusing to unlock the phone? It just seems you've added unnecessary extra steps.

Think for a moment. What is the difference between giving them a password which wipes the phone and giving them a password which opens a blank phone?

It's the same thing. They punched in a code, they are presented with a wiped phone. Can they prove the guy gave them a distress password and wasn't simply carrying a wiped phone to begin with? No, but they just need to imply that is the reason to charge him with the felony.

Really? Does it take a long time to recover the phone? Haven’t really ever needed to recover a backup

I mean, you could ship your real phone to w/e destination ahead of you and bring a $50 burner to the border. If you're a person of interest this won't work because they can monitor you and the destination but if you're a regular schmuck then a burner that never touches your private data or accounts and has a bunch of dummy stuff on it will get you past the border goons.